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Tuesday, March 13, 2018

Love on the Menu

In case you couldn't tell from this blog, Roger and I really love to eat. For our wedding, it was important to us to have food and beverages that were delicious, local, and true to who are are. We were so thrilled to find Barry of Barefoot Gourmet. He opened his home to us for a tasting, and we were instantly hooked on his incredible blend of South African, Indian, and comfort food.

We missed most of the appetizers, so we'll just have to hire Barry for another party soon, since we were told they were absolutely phenomenal. For standing stations, he served chocolate maple chicken wings and a southwest dip platter of guacamole and pico de gallo. He passed around butternut squash and sweet corn soups, "big island bites" of Vermont cheddar and Hawaiian honey in croustades cups (I had just one of these after entering and it was the best bite of my evening!), chicken satay, bhajias, crab cakes with lime and pepper aioli, and braised pork belly (this was Roger's favorite!).

We wanted to keep things casual and our dinner buffet was also made up of easy-to-eat tapas, including grilled sadza with West African groundnut stew, a Punjabi take on bunny chow, samosas, rainbow quinoa salad, sosaties, peri peri prawns, and syracuse potatoes. At the end of the night, Barry was kind enough to leave out piles of garlic bread for us to snack on while dancing continued. Working with him to create the menu was a joy, and he was so flexible with our sometimes-strange requests. I hope we have the chance to work with him again soon!

For drinks, we were lucky enough to bring in our own beer and wine. We served some of our favorite local beers, including Von Trapp Pilsner, Long Trail Ale and Double Bag, Harpoon UFO White and Downeast cider. We also had Riojana chardonnay and malbec for the wine lovers among us. Behind the bar, a big bottle of Knob Creek, our favorite whiskey, was available with mason jars for friends "in the know."

Our cake was one of the most meaningful parts of the wedding for me, which is a little funny, since we actually didn't serve it, and only had a very small one to cut and feed each other. For our guests, we served Lou's maple and chocolate crullers, Barry's famous dark chocolate chip cookies, and hot apple cider along with coffee.

Sarah brought our cake all the way up from Brooklyn to Vermont. It's one of our favorite cakes (a classic birthday cake)
from a beloved bakery in our old neighborhood, Buttermilk Bakeshop, and having it brought
back so many joyful memories of our time living in Brooklyn and all the
celebrations we'd had there.

The only snafu there was that we didn't have dessert forks for anyone, so Roger and I fed each other with our hands!

The cake sat on a platter that was a wedding gift, and we cut it with a fancy knife and server set we bought ourselves. I can't wait to use those same items to cut birthday cakes for our children and use at celebrations for the rest of our lives! We borrowed my parents' cake topper from their 1979 wedding, and I think that's sure to bring us a bit of luck!

To continue with our photographic theme, before we got married a friend mentioned that at her
wedding, she put photos of her parents and in-laws cutting the cake at
each of their weddings right next to the cake, and I knew that was
something I wanted to do immediately. We stole the idea right away, and put photos of our grandparents' weddings on the other side. I think they helped make the table look quite homey.

Overall, we got a lot of compliments on the food, and I couldn't be happier with how it all turned out. Best of all, Barry put all the leftovers in the fridge for us afterward, so we didn't need to cook for several days after!